2024-08-29 A Meditation on A Living Vein of Truth

“28 As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. 29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 30 For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, 31 so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. 32 For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all. 33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! 34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” 35 “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” 36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” (Rom 11:28-36 ESV)

Horizons react and answer to any person’s best status update. Our status update will one day be proven largely correct, or largely wrong. In life as it lies experiential, this is more than we can handle: to be right or wrong; the possibility of “wrong” is a terror, but also to be “right” scares as well: is our wisdom the best thing going for us? Is our correctness in fact the winning lurch? Is our accolade to be found in some kind of gold medal or after-the-fact correction?

Jesus promises an award or dwelling place, confidence, homely peace, plain needs met, in the present hour and this very moment. Jesus is the focal point to any prayer that seeks this: Hey, I was going well with the gospel, until it became all about Me; I need to rediscover plain fact—and indeed it is a fact near to where I dwell spiritually, boasting aside—that we needed some nurture and sustenance surrounding plain infamy, dying, lonesome reality, horrified self-reflection; so, No, we weren’t “Graduated” or “Post-” concession, submission, repentance, confession: we needed it all the more.

Therefore time comes when it all comes naturally, the prayer-warrior’s plain Assertion: I live for Christ, and this—if you take issue—this I can substantiate largely by taciturn or rare assertions or prayers or truth claims or answers. I can substantiate that the Story of His dying on a Cross is one that preps me: we shall not float away into some mystical bliss, but instead each of us—yes, Scripture our aid—is being taught rightly to Die. To face fright. To be the stronger for the wear. To know only this—yes, simple is our religion—that Another has already done so and more, emphasizing His descent to the nether regions and His ascension to be On High.

The soldier’s Tomorrow, then, is Received, Resurrected, Resigned-unto-Revelation, Lifted, as a Tomorrow not mere “victory” in man’s wars, but a pugnacious refusal to meet on the enemy’s terms: refusal to meet on the question of who has a bigger arsenal or has a more crazed-unto-belligerence soldiery. We are in fact walking a route called Already Victorious. We are in fact student, bespectacled and earnest with our couple of good bookshelves. We are in fact taking that time to celebrate an occasion, or just to celebrate the Sabbath. We are investing in things that do not fall into place on man’s timing or intention, but in some Divine timing and intention. And these can begin in just how we pray, whether allowing for those uncovered—yes, here I was all confessed and composed, until I remembered my sins—moments unguarded, shame being just as real as yawning “guilt”, embarrassment as much a pointer to sin as patent standard litanies.

So it is no affectation to be a bit tired or bored with the warmongering, and no affectation to be a bit excited by the common Testimony, vis-a-vis its proximity to where in fact we actually dwell. In rambunctious, out soothed: such is our worship service, such is our time of prayer, such is our Rediscovery of the truth so well aged like fine wine, and so well circumnavigated, and so well easy to be confident in: no, we are not past the time of plain childlike Trust and Weaning off of the confessional and into the standard Fare of Composed Confidence. All this and more, has been the brewing storm, a storm of Confidence and Engagement unto tomorrow’s wars, because for all the false-fronts and yawning mediocrity of intent, we believe Spirit runs against Spirit and genuine Facts or Realities are in contention; we believe judgment is hair-raising in its efficiencies, for easy is His yoke and burden, yet Easy to fall into is “Their” childlike mock insult, apprehension, or horror; that is, Judgment is real and taking place on all sides, and we are both surprised at the model of patience seen even in would-be enemies. We are called to be those composed and confident of our own Blessed Estate but of His timing—being perfect—being patient and right on time.

People will surrender even their liberties in the name of a personal offense, fright, indignation, insult, or mock horror. To remind each other both to be more generous to a would-be assailant, and to be more strict with their group-think or false Honor and Trust taken advantage of, is to forgive the sinner but hate the sin. It is to know how plain is the outcome when each party is Sincere, falsely-derived onslaughts notwithstanding; yes, strange the space allotted to false claims (“Why doesn’t someone step in and correct them, if they are wrong?”), but all this in the interest of not breaking limbs or amputating living flesh, but of letting the Truth percolate as much as it is willing to do, even at the expense of a harvest of removing weeds being postponed. And such were some of us.